The Frank J. Selke Trophy is awarded annually to the National Hockey League forward who demonstrates the most skill in the defensive component of the game. The winner is selected by a poll of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association following the regular season. It has been awarded 33 times to 21 different players since the 1977–78 NHL season. The current holder is Ryan Kesler of the Vancouver Canucks.

The trophy was first awarded at the end of the 1977–78 NHL season. It was named after Frank J. Selke, former general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens. The Selke Trophy was the fifth and last of the major NHL awards to be introduced that have been named after General Managers and owners of the Original Six teams, the other awards being the Art Ross Trophy, James Norris Trophy, Conn Smythe Trophy, and Jack Adams Award.

The first recipient was Bob Gainey of the Canadiens, who won the trophy the first four years it was given, and to date he has won it more times than any other player.Guy Carbonneau, Jere Lehtinen, and Pavel Datsyuk are tied for the second-most wins, with three apiece.

Patrice Bergeron (born Patrice Bergeron-Cleary; July 24, 1985) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre and alternate captain currently playing for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League (NHL). He played junior with the Acadie-Bathurst Titan of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) for one full season before being selected 45th overall by the Bruins in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft. He made the immediate jump from junior to the NHL after his draft and joined the Bruins in 2003–04. Internationally, Bergeron competes for Team Canada and has won gold medals at the 2004 World Championships, 2005 World Junior Championships and 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Bergeron is the most recent member of the Triple Gold Club after he won the Stanley Cup with Boston on June 15, 2011. Bergeron scored two goals including the Stanley Cup winning goal at 14:37 of the first period of Game 7 at Vancouver.

Bergeron grew up in his hometown of Ancienne-Lorette, Quebec and was mostly an A and AA player throughout his minor hockey days. He was drafted in the 5th round of the 2001 QMJHL Draft out of AAA Bantam hockey with the Saint-Foy Gouveneurs. The following year he played AAA hockey for the Séminaire St-François Blizzard before reporting to the Acadie-Bathurst Titan of the QMJHL.

Ryan James Kesler (born August 31, 1984) is an American professional ice hockey center for the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League (NHL). He serves as an alternate captain for the Canucks during home games. Selected in the first round, 23rd overall by the Vancouver Canucks in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft, Kesler has spent his entire seven-year NHL career with the Canucks. He is best known for being a two-way forward, winning the Selke Trophy in 2011 after having finished as a finalist the previous two years, as well as for his agitating style of play.

Kesler played junior hockey with the U.S. National Team Development Program from which he then accepted a scholarship to play college hockey with the Ohio State Buckeyes of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA). In one season with the Buckeyes, he was an honourable mention for the CCHA All-Rookie Team and was named CCHA Rookie of the Week three times and CCHA Rookie of the Month once. In addition to the U.S. National Team Development Program and the Ohio State Buckeyes, Kesler has also suited up for the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League (AHL), where he was named to an AHL All-Star Game.

William J. Masterton (August 13, 1938 – January 15, 1968) was a Canadian-American professional ice hockey centre who played one season in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Minnesota North Stars before succumbing to an injury he suffered during a game against the Oakland Seals in 1968. He is one of only two players in NHL history to die as a direct result of an on-ice incident during a game, the other being Howie Morenz of the Montreal Canadiens, in 1937.

A native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Masterton began playing hockey in Canada's far-flung junior hockey program with the St. Boniface Canadiens in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League in 1956-57. Masterton went on to play collegiate hockey at the University of Denver in 1957-58 where he would be named an All-American and help the Pioneers win three NCAA national titles in 1958, 1960 and 1961. He was signed by the Montreal Canadiens soon after he came out of the University of Denver in 1961 and would play a few years in the minors before retiring in 1963 in order to work for the Honeywell Corporation in Minneapolis, MN. In 1966 Masterton played as an amateur for the United States men's national ice hockey team and eventually became an American citizen in 1967. The Montreal Canadiens traded his rights to the Minnesota North Stars before their inaugural season in 1967-68. He scored the first goal in North Stars history on October 11, 1967.

Pavel Valerievich Datsyuk (Russian: Па́вел Вале́рьевич Дацю́к, IPA: [ˈpavʲɪl dɐˈt͡sʲʉk]; born July 20, 1978) is a professional ice hockey player from Russia and alternate captain for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League (NHL). He is known for his stick-handling and is considered one of the best two-way forwards in the game today, having won the Frank J. Selke Trophy in the 2007–08, 2008–09, and 2009–10 NHL seasons. Datsyuk also won four consecutive Lady Byng Memorial Trophies from 2006-09 for performance and sportsmanship. He was nominated for the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player following the 2008–09 season. Datsyuk won the Stanley Cup in 2002 and 2008 with the Red Wings.

Datsyuk was born in Sverdlovsk (Cвердловск) (now Yekaterinburg), in the Urals region of Russia. His parents call him by his short name "Pasha" from an early age. His childhood had more than its fair share of difficulties, especially at the age of 16, when his mother died. While Datsyuk displayed above-average hockey skills, he was often overlooked by scouts because of his smaller size. He began playing for the farm club of Dynamo Yekaterinburg in the mid-1990s, though he seemed headed for an undistinguished career until noted Olympic trainer Vladimir Krikunov began coaching the team. The boy “with the twitchy walk” caught the eye of Krikunov, but not on the ice. Instead, Datsyuk excelled on the soccer field, where his anticipation, vision, and intelligence were more apparent. Under Krikunov, Datsyuk evolved into a particularly efficient two-way player, and he began to draw wider attention among Russian hockey fans. Despite his early successes, however, he went undrafted in the 1996 and 1997 NHL drafts.